


And in the Morning, Joy

by DramaticEntrance



Series: Merrick/Draven [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Antoc Merrick Lives, M/M, description of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-09 23:05:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13491675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DramaticEntrance/pseuds/DramaticEntrance
Summary: In another world, Merrick lives and the Death Star comes for Yavin.“They’re my people, Dav,” Merrick said, the anger in his tone giving way to pleading. “I should be up there, but if I can’t, then I should at least be in the command room.” Merrick shook his head. “I know I won’t be any help, but...I can’t go back to that room and just wait to die. I won’t.”Draven looked at Merrick, then down the hallway. “Let’s get out of here.”“You’re kidding?” Merrick sounded hopeful.A companion piece toTime Enough for Mourning, a look at a future where Merrick escapes his canonical fate.





	And in the Morning, Joy

**Author's Note:**

> I never actually intend to write these two, they kick down the door and shove my current project out of the way, holding my muse hostage until I write them. 
> 
> Feh, generals. So bossy. 
> 
> Thanks goes to [Dolly Bassett](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolly_Bassett/) for major cheerleading and inspiration bringing. 
> 
> And to [Aeshna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeshna/), for getting the two of them outside. And then accidentally betaing the fic. I am grateful that some habits are hard to break :D

* * *

Davits Draven pushed his way through Medical, neatly sidestepping the chaos by looking like he knew exactly where he was going. It was amazing how much of spycraft amounted to looking certain, and if that didn’t work, looking like someone else’s problem. 

“Dav?” came a voice next to him in the hallway, interrupting his purposeful stride. Draven paused to look down at the man in the hoverchair. 

Antoc Merrick looked like shit: skin pale except for the dark circles under his eyes, sickly sheen of sweat covering his skin, jaw spasming in a telltale giveaway of overwhelming pain. The medical report droned unwanted in his head as Draven regarded Merrick. Second and third degree burns from sustained contact with cockpit fire, concentrated around legs. Impact damage causing compound fracture of hip and femur as well as blunt trauma to chest and neck. Possible neurological damage due to oxygen deprivation, extent unknown until formal evaluation can be completed. 

In short, he was a bruised—possibly confused—mess with an immobilized leg and still-healing skin despite bacta treatment; he should not be out of bed.

He was also alive, which felt like the sort of miracle Draven thought he didn’t believe in any more. 

Before Draven could say anything, a medic pushed past him in the hallway, then paused his speed-walk from one room to another to turn and look at Merrick. “Kriff,” the medic muttered under his breath. Louder, he said in an overly-cheerful voice, “General! You should be in your room, mind if I take you back there?” 

“I’m handling this,” Draven said, his voice tundra-cold. 

The medic looked up at Draven, over to his rank markers, and down to Merrick. “Very good, Sir.” 

Someone else’s problem. 

Draven took his eyes from the man’s retreating form and arched an eyebrow at Merrick. 

“It’s...not what it looks like?” Merrick said in a thin attempt at humor.

Draven did not oblige him with a chuckle. “You don’t seem to be in any condition to go anywhere.” 

“As a technical point,” Merrick inhaled slowly, followed by a pained exhale, “I’m not currently _going_ anywhere.”

This was as coherent as Merrick had been since the day his flaming carcass of an X-Wing crashed into the frigate’s landing bay seconds before the ship jumped out of Scarif’s orbit. 

A shame, really. It would have been kinder for Merrick if he had stayed delirious. For Draven—selfishly, he was glad to have the chance to talk to Merrick again. One last time. 

“The Empire has found us. The Death Star is making an approach on Yavin.” 

“I know. It’s why I was trying to get out of here.” Merrick struggled to push himself up further in the hoverchair. 

He couldn’t seriously…“The squadrons have already launched. And you are in no position to fly.” 

Merrick’s face lined with anger as he strained a moment longer before collapsing back against the chair. “I am aware of that.” The bitterness was so foreign to his tone that Draven nearly wept to hear it. “Can’t even steer my own damn hoverchair, I’d be useless in a cockpit.” 

“Then why are you…” 

“They’re my people, Dav,” Merrick said, the anger in his tone giving way to pleading. “I should be up there, but if I can’t, then I should at least be in the command room.” Merrick shook his head. “I know I won’t be any help, but...I can’t go back to that room and just wait to die. I won’t.”

Draven looked at Merrick, then down the hallway. “Let’s get out of here.” 

“You’re kidding?” Merrick sounded hopeful. 

“Odds are we’re all about to die anyway. No point in doing it in here.” 

“Yes.” Merrick relaxed back against the chair. “Please.” 

Draven took the chair’s handles and walked Merrick out of medical. He looked like he knew where he was going. Nobody stopped him. 

Once he got out the door, if he turned right he’d wind up in command. Draven turned left. 

“Where are you going?” Merrick twisted his head, looking back back toward the war room. 

“We’d just be in the way, in there. There’s more than one way to watch.” Draven pushed the door open, and maneuvered Merrick into the sunshine. “There’s a decent spot up this way.” He got the hoverchair up a few steps, moved it over to a clear patch of stone. 

When he got the hoverchair settled he moved around to the front so he could see Merrick’s face. His gaze was fixed on the sky, where the trail of X-Wing tail light had streaked earlier, on the faintly-visible outline of the Death Star, from this distance looking like an innocuous moon. He gave a disbelieving shake of his head before he looked back over at Draven. 

“How are you doing?” Draven asked. 

“Better, now.” Merrick glanced up at Draven. “Thanks for bringing me out here. Can I convince you to leave me a comm?”

“No.” Draven pointedly sat down on a boulder next to Merrick, reaching out and tugging the hoverchair up alongside him. “I'm not leaving.”

Merrick gave him a faintly disbelieving look. “What are you doing?” 

Draven looked down at his hands. Small tremors ran through them. They’d been shaking on and off since he realized…”There’s nothing left for me to do. Nothing to do but wait, now.” 

“Still. I’m sure they want you in the war room.” 

Draven looked up again. “Delto is in the war room. He’s handling communications. I’m where I need to be.” 

Merrick coughed, eyebrows arching. Draven felt a bit of heat across his cheeks. Blushing, shaking, his body deciding to show his entire hand of cards at once. 

“Dav,” Merrick said slowly, his blue eyes too, too knowing. Draven looked away, and he heard a soft chuckle next to him. Merrick continued, a lightness to his tone that hadn’t existed before, “Please bear in mind that I would never, ever do this to you under normal circumstances. But considering we both might die in the next few minutes...” Merrick trailed off. 

Draven looked up at the pale white outline of their impending annihilation and back over at Merrick. 

“I love you,” Merrick said, and Merrick didn’t lie. 

Something burned in Draven’s eyes, his vision going blurry. He reached over, found unbandaged skin to rest his hand against. He opened his mouth, and truths and lies alike tangled and died in his chest without ever making it to his throat.

“I’m going to feel like an idiot if we live through this,” Merrick said, struggling his hand across to cover Draven’s. “But I wanted you to know.” 

“You’re the best person in my life,” Draven said, the words finding some backdoor in his brain, coming out raw and unguarded. “In every definition of the word.” 

Merrick’s fingers pressed against the top of his hand. “Idiots together, then.”

Draven felt something lift in his chest, and a small smile crept onto his mouth. “True enough.” 

Merrick reached a hand towards Draven’s face. “Come on, Dav, over here.” 

It was only after Draven went, his head resting against Merrick’s mostly uninjured shoulder that he realized he hadn't even looked to see if other people were around. He didn’t care. Not now. 

“I can patch us through to Command,” Draven said, as Merrick’s fingers traced over the top of his wrist. “If you want to listen.”

Merrick didn’t answer for a long moment, then Draven felt his head turn, Merrick’s miraculously unburnt mustache brushing against his forehead as he placed a gentle kiss. “No. I’ll find out what happened if we live. If we don’t...I’d rather spend this time with you.” 

Draven shifted, careful but pressing closer. Merrick turned, his cheek pressing against Draven’s temple. Draven’s eyes rose again to the Death Star. Was it larger now? 

“I never expected this,” Merrick said. “Always figured I’d die in a cockpit.” 

“I expected...in the field if I was fortunate. Captured if I wasn’t.” Draven turned his palm up, slotting his fingers in between Merrick’s. “Either way, alone.” 

“Exactly. If our war ends here, in the sunlight”—Merrick gave Draven’s hand a gentle squeeze—“with someone I love…” 

“There are worse endings.”

“Far worse,” Merrick agreed. 

They lapsed into silence, Draven’s thumb stroking along the outside of Merrick’s hand. Together they watched the sky.

When the ever-growing moon shivered and split into radiant dust, nothing left of it but sparks and ashes; when Draven’s comm came on, Delto’s voice cracking as he announced, “Skywalker made the shot! It’s gone! It’s done!” Draven was surprised to feel a sob shake through him as he struggled to keep his hold on Merrick’s hand gentle. 

He felt lips brush against his forehead and Merrick made an affectionate shushing sound. “So little faith in our Starfighter Corps?” 

Draven gave a rasping laugh, his throat thick with emotion. “I knew our best was grounded.” 

He could feel the soft chuckle roll through Merrick’s frame. Merrick stayed there, his lips resting against Draven’s skin, and for long moments they breathed together, reveling in the fact that there was breath left in both of them. 

Eventually, Merrick turned and pressed his cheek against Draven’s hair. A fragile note to his voice, he said, “Dav, I won’t forget what you said today. And I know you’ve never forgotten a thing I’ve said and have no intention of starting now. But”—Merrick gave a sigh, his cheek pressing a little firmer— “if you need to, I can ignore it.”

They were going to live. Merrick loved him. 

Draven pulled back, resting a finger under Merrick’s chin and guiding him around to meet Draven’s gaze. “I’ll need to be going soon. The Empire knows where we are, we need to coordinate an evacuation—”

“Of course. There’s things for you to do again.” Something bitter moved across Merrick’s face, there and gone, and then only earnest affection remained. “Thank you for stealing me out of Medical. And then staying with me. It’s the kindest gift you could have given.”

Draven felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “I’m going to need to get better at gift giving then. I love you too. We’re not ignoring this.” 

Merrick blinked, and didn’t respond for long seconds. “I’m sorry, I could have sworn you just said—”

“I love you, Antoc Merrick, and later, when we are not in the giddy aftermath of the Empire’s superweapon being destroyed, I will no doubt worry over having my heart so plainly known. But here and now, I don’t care about that; we lived, I’m with you, that’s enough.”

Draven took a deep breath as he held Merrick’s gaze, hoping that somehow Merrick could read his truth as well as he always seemed to discern his lies. 

A smile erupted on Merrick’s face, boyish and charming, a sparkle in his blue eyes. Draven felt years become inconsequential, as captivated now as he had been at twenty-four. “I love you,” he said again, because for some reason, in this time and place the truth was easy, and Merrick deserved to know it. 

“I love you too.” Merrick leaned in and kissed him, gentle and plain, exceptional in its honesty, the way Merrick had always been. 

Then Draven shifted forward, his hand coming up to wrap around the back of Merrick’s head and pull him closer, the kiss growing wicked and full of promise. He heard a soft groan in the back of Merrick’s throat and smiled into the kiss.

“Okay,” Merrick panted as they pulled apart. It wasn’t entirely because of the kiss—Merrick still looked overjoyed but also exhausted, the bruising under his eyes only slightly offset by the flush that had entered his cheeks. “You can take me back to Medical and go do what needs to be done. We’ll figure out the future in the morning.” 

Draven fit his palm against Merrick’s cheek. “I’ll be there.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I'm so appreciative and surprised by the love this series has been given. I feel like it's my indie art piece of fanworks, not as well-known as my larger universes, but beloved by the people that find it. 
> 
> We'll see how long it takes these two to steal my muse again in the future. 
> 
> Want to try to make it happen sooner? Come make excited noises about these two at me [on Tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sassysnowperson)


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